News Review interview: Stephenie Meyer

A Mormon housewife’s bestselling tales of a gallant ghoul are fast filling the void left by Harry Potter

All across America last weekend, thousands of teenage girls lined up outside bookstores dressed as vampires or werewolves. Some of the shops provided red make-up so the girls could apply vampire bite-marks to their necks. Others offered "plasma punch", a strawberry-coloured drink. Not since the heyday of Harry Potter have so many books been sold at after-midnight launch parties.

For the US publishing industry, struggling to fill the blockbuster void left by JK Rowling's hero, a new kind of wizardry has arrived. It is all the work of Stephenie Meyer, a 34-year-old housewife from Arizona who has suddenly become the fastest-selling author in the world.

On its first day in print last Saturday, Meyer's new book, Breaking Dawn, sold 1.3m copies in the US alone. Her British publisher - Little, Brown - is already into its fifth reprint; on the day the book was released, Borders bookshop in Oxford Street, London, sold